Good day, Mr. Brooks. Time for a little verbal jousting! I pretty much took your letter at face value. My letter had quite a few tongue-in-cheek sarcasms. Case in point: my retiree money comment. I know more than a few people were amused by my letter while sadly agreeing with it. First of all I don\u2019t need to know anything about you, who you\u2019ve shook hands with, had your picture taken with or how many books you\u2019ve written. Your education notwithstanding, your blinders were on in regards to issues you addressed in the CNMI when you took one small part of an entire economy and assigned a very large amount of blame. No need to understand you or Economics 101 to find your meaning in that. You threw some good ideas out there, but you have to remember, no one on the Hill is listening. It\u2019s how things are done on Saipan. <\/p>\n
You use Hawaii as an economic point\u2014Hawaii\u2019s real estate bubble has grown and popped many times and will keep repeating itself. When the Japanese economy died in early 1997, Hawaii later reaped the benefit of getting a lot of that real estate back from the Japanese at pennies on the dollar. The current bubble is now largely driven by rich folks from the mainland (thanks to the Internet) who are playing the same absentee landlord game the Japanese did and are buying up properties left and right, holding them while waiting for the bubble to grow. It\u2019ll pop soon enough; it always does. <\/p>\n
Don\u2019t see how it applies to Saipan. The real estate game in the Commonwealth is basically nonexistent. Article 12: You think it helps or protects the CNMI economy in any way? Ask a realtor on Saipan his opinion. Imagine how much money would be in the CNMI if you or I or any American citizen could own land and pass it on to our children. You can be sure; I\u2019d probably still be there now, spending my money along with many others. Do you know how many folks packed up and left or changed their minds about settling down in the CNMI once they enacted Article 12 (retroactively at that)? As it is, I\u2019ll be retiring on Saipan at a point in my life when I couldn\u2019t care less if I own a piece of property. Can you imagine a large scale retirement community pouring money into the CNMI? Many folks have given it very serious thought\u2014for Japanese, Chinese, Korean and American retirees. But you can bet Article 12 is the No. 1 issue that brings negotiations to a screeching halt when everyone puts their cards on the table. <\/p>\n
And using the Philippines as an economic analogy? Really? The Marcoses raped and pillaged their country, plain and simple. There wasn\u2019t any form of economics, British, American or otherwise, involved in solving or explaining that equation. They took the checks Ronny Raygun sent to the Philippines to fight communists and deposited them directly into their bank accounts. It was just theft on an insanely massive scale\u2014sort of like Wall Street and Corporate America nowadays. <\/p>\n
I\u2019m not sure but I\u2019ll hazard a guess that you haven\u2019t been on the islands very long. There are a great many aspects to Saipan life that you will enjoy learning about and might take awhile to understand. I grew up in an island culture. I lived on Saipan for 11 years, started my family there. My kids and I call it home. Many locals won\u2019t take the low salary when they have Mom, Dad, brother or sister making the inflated government wage with all the attached benefits. Many are waiting until they can get a government job. Do you blame them? I don\u2019t. They\u2019re not stupid or lazy; it\u2019s just how it is. <\/p>\n
Again, I don\u2019t know how long you\u2019ve been on Saipan or how familiar you are with island culture, but there is a big keeping-up-with-the-Joneses attitude in the CNMI. Where else in the world will you find a man with a wife and three kids living in a tin house and driving a fully loaded Camry? It\u2019s for keeping up appearances. That is not a racist statement, just fact. <\/p>\n
Take that $5.05 an hour job? I\u2019ll put my money where my mouth is: I have. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt to show for it. I started at Hyatt in 1992 at $4.20 an hour, when the minimum wage was $2.15. My wife and I raised three kids on Saipan with, at most, a combined salary of maybe $10 to $11 an hour. We survived\u2014thrived actually. We bought cars, took long vacations, spent our money locally, etc. Sent a lot overseas, too. That was the wage offered\u2014you took it or starve. <\/p>\n
I put Hitler (the Holocaust) and George Bush (Iraq, WMD, terrorists) in the same sentence because they are both guilty of doing the same thing: They created a fictional enemy for everyone to fear and place the blame for our societal ills. That, in turn, allowed them to take over our lives and take away our rights. You and Uncle Ben were doing your best to make aliens and immigrants seem like the enemy\u2014shame on you\u2014obviously your wife-to-be is an immigrant. I can bet your fianc\u00e9e is sending money out of the CNMI to her family overseas. <\/p>\n
Was my letter negative? Yes. It was. It also called for positive change. If you truly call the CNMI home, you\u2019d probably feel the same way I do\u2014I know many, many of my friends on Saipan feel the same way I do. It breaks our hearts that the CNMI, a part of America, is being run into the ground by so many corrupt and self-serving clowns. I also have many friends from the islands who live here in the mainland and they would love nothing more than to be able to go back home, me included\u2014if and when the economy is no longer in the pits. Do you know how many fine people have left the CNMI to seek greener pastures in the mainland because they can\u2019t afford to live in their birthplace? The CNMI is the only place in America to have its population shrink (indigenous population), since the last Census. You can look it up. <\/p>\n
This also brings up another Article 12 point: The folks who have left, they want to sell their land because they have permanently relocated to the mainland, but are being forced by Article 12 to sell to a local who, by the way, doesn\u2019t have any money these days (unless he or she is an overpaid government official and they\u2019re not buying either) because the local economy is in the toilet. No need for a degree in economics to see how that\u2019s not helping the economy. <\/p>\n
You also say the CNMI needs to produce to have a viable economy. Taken into account the Jones Act? (That\u2019s another one you can blame on the U.S. government) As for calling the voters inept, your words, not mine. My words for local voters are much stronger and a majority of folks will agree with me. Been around long enough for a CNMI election, Mr. Brooks? If not, you are in for a treat. On the islands, or any island culture for that matter, voting tends to go along family lines. It\u2019s who you\u2019re related to, not who is best for the job that get elected into office. Island folks tend to vote for candidates who are more like themselves rather than who is smartest or most able to get the job done. And that is not a derogatory comment; just stating common facts. Ask any number of locals, they will quite unashamedly tell you, \u201cYeah, I voted for my uncle, auntie, cousin, etc…\u201d Families are so tight on the islands that currently, getting them to vote for someone other than a member of the family is highly unlikely to happen. This tight family connection, on one hand, is a great and wonderful thing. Mainland America could learn a lot from it. On the other hand, well, you know…can\u2019t be very easy for them either, what with the Commonwealth being such a small town and all. <\/p>\n
Also, votes are bought in the simplest of ways on the islands. Why do you think the politicians in the CNMI each gave themselves such large discretionary funds? It\u2019s for election time! It\u2019s for paying power bills, beer for parties, tent and picnic table rental, etc. Case in point: A candidate who will remain unnamed, although everyone who reads this will know exactly who I am talking about, ran around Saipan giving out $10 gas vouchers in the days right before an election. It\u2019s how things are done on Saipan. I voted every chance I had while living in the CNMI, even though the choices were very limited each election. You tell me to run for office in the CNMI, I would but I am a realist. (I will ask my Saipan friends at this point to stop laughing) There are many, many fine folks in the CNMI who should run for office but won\u2019t because they and their supporters know and understand they will not get elected because of the current voter mentality. <\/p>\n
I never put any blame on the U.S. government for the CNMI\u2019s problems. Sure, they failed when they gave billions to the CNMI with no guidance, checks, or balances, but that was it. No more blaming other folks\u2014plain and simple. I put the blame for the CNMI economical woes directly on the folks running the show. Not the folks who are affected by it. Because the folks running the show aren\u2019t the ones affected by their own decisions! They voted to give themselves huge stipends\u2014Tinian and Rota officials with $5,000 a month in stipends?\u2014that they don\u2019t have to show any accountability for. Seriously, why does a senator in the CNMI need that much? How much are their housing allowances, etc., and that famous discretionary fund they all hang on to so dearly. <\/p>\n
The regular government worker in the CNMI is the one who has gone without due to the payless paydays. At this point it doesn\u2019t matter that they are possibly making triple the income of the private sector when you don\u2019t get paid. Shouldn\u2019t the folks who caused\/failed to fix, the economic collapse be the ones to take a payless payday first? Add up all their perks and see how much they are taking home per month. I doubt they are so low on funds that they can\u2019t make their rent, pay power bills, and buy groceries, unlike the rank and file in the CNMI government. The rank and file will be ignored by those on the Hill. Why? Because that\u2019s how things are done on Saipan. If you got the meaning of my letter, it\u2019s that how things are done on Saipan game the CNMI political machine and that has to come to an end. I know the people of the CNMI are tired of the game, too, but what can they do? If your man\u2019amko are telling you to vote for your uncle, well, then, you vote for your uncle. <\/p>\n
The island attitude toward politics needs to change. Change will obviously move at the pace of the islands. The CNMI, if it is to continue growing and becoming a better place to make a living and support a family, has to change. If the CNMI politicos can\u2019t get their act together, Uncle Sam will eventually step in, take over everything and the Commonwealth will end up like Guam, American Samoa, and Puerto Rico. The last thing the CNMI needs is the feds showing up in full force. Having Homeland Security firmly entrenched there is bad enough. As for thinking I\u2019m racist, if you knew me, you\u2019d know how far that is from the truth. I was raised in Hawaii and we call anyone older than ourselves Auntie or Uncle. The same goes for Saipan. Trust me, you wouldn\u2019t want me to tell what I really think of Uncle Ben in a newspaper.<\/p>\n
[B]Paul H. Beebe[\/B]
\n[I]Spokane, Washington[\/I]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Good day, Mr. Brooks. Time for a little verbal jousting! I pretty much took your letter at face value. My letter had quite a few tongue-in-cheek sarcasms. Case in point: my retiree money comment. I know more than a few people were amused by my letter while sadly agreeing with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157235\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}